Trump’s tweet about defending preexisting situation is shameless

Even amid an period of American politics rife with absurdities, President Donald Trump’s posturing as a champion for folks with preexisting medical circumstances stands out.

Trump — who in 2017 pushed well being care laws that would’ve resulted in 23 million Americans losing coverage, and whose administration is at the moment fighting in federal court to strike down the Affordable Care Act (ACA), together with its protections for folks with preexisting circumstances — nonetheless claimed in a tweet attacking Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg on Monday that “I used to be the one that saved Pre-Current Circumstances in your Healthcare, you have got it now.”

Alluding to the aforementioned lawsuit, Trump went on to put in writing that “if Republicans win in courtroom and take again the Home of Represenatives [sic], your healthcare, that I’ve now dropped at the perfect place in a few years, will turn out to be the perfect ever, by far. I’ll at all times shield your Pre-Current Circumstances, the Dems is not going to!”

Trump’s tweet is both an enormous lie, illustrates his profound confusion about well being care coverage, or some mixture thereof.

As I’ve written before, when Trump has been requested fundamental questions on well being care — corresponding to “what’s your well being care plan, sir?” — he’s sometimes responded with prolonged, incoherent phrase salads. The possibility Trump knows so little about health care policy that he truly believes he saved protections for preexisting circumstances can’t be dominated out.

However whereas Trump is likely to be confused about well being care, the Justice Division and Republican state attorneys basic who’re get together to the lawsuit the president referred to — which seeks to strike down the ACA — appear to be seeing issues extra clearly.

As Katelyn Burns wrote for Vox, Republicans filed a short on Friday asking a federal courtroom courtroom to not take up the ACA case till after the 2020 election. That transfer suggests Republicans are nicely conscious that their unceasing push to take well being care away from folks is a political loser this yr, simply because it was throughout 2018’s blue wave election. (The City Institute estimates about 20 million folks would lose protection if the Republican lawsuit is profitable.)

Whereas Trump’s efforts to repeal the ACA have been unsuccessful, he has presided over a significant increase in the rate of uninsured people within the nation. His well being care proposals have persistently sought to strip authorized protections and protection from folks. And but he’s refusing to let actuality cease him from posturing as one thing he clearly isn’t — or making empty guarantees about what’s going to occur if Republicans retake management of the Home following this November’s elections.

Trump’s Monday morning tweets had been in response to ads Bloomberg has been running hitting him on well being care. Bloomberg, and Democrats extra broadly, appear to appreciate that well being care is a matter through which they will draw a transparent distinction with Trump. The Republican temporary that was filed on Friday got here in response to Democratic attorneys basic petitioning the courtroom to take up the preexisting circumstances case on an expedited foundation.

As Burns wrote:

If the Supreme Courtroom had been to uphold the ACA, Democrats would be capable of marketing campaign because the get together that defended Obamacare. If it had been to be overturned, then Democrats would solid the GOP because the get together that dumped 20 million folks off their medical health insurance in an election yr.

It’s in Republicans’ finest pursuits to keep away from that lose-lose situation, and subsequently they’ve requested the courtroom to not take up the case within the first place.

The information strikes quick. To remain up to date, observe Aaron Rupar on Twitter, and browse extra of Vox’s policy and politics coverage.